ACCORDING TO THE L.A Times, The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries. (The LA Times is no friend of the current administration; on the same web page the Times has a link to A six-part opinion series on Our Dishonest President)
- The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University. That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring.
The Times article lists U.S. interference in elections held in Czechoslovakia
Haiti (Reagan)
Italy (Truman)
Israel (Obama)
Nicaragua (Carter)
Russia (Clinton)
South Vietnam (JFK)
UK (Brexit)
Yugoslavia (Clinton)
The list fails to include invasions of Cuba (JFK, 1961, failed), Grenada (Reagan, 1983, succeeded), Iraq (Geo. W. Bush, 2003, failed) and Panama (Geo. H.W. Bush, 1989, succeeded).
Good for gander, good for goose
In perhaps the most audacious act of hypocrisy, considering the current charge that “the Russians” have intervened in the recent presidential election, the United States made a move to help the reelection effort in 1996 of Russian President Boris Yeltsen. President Bill Clinton endorsed a $10.2-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, supposedly to help Russia move toward a capitalist economy. Yeltsin then used the fact that he got this loan as a reason for voters to support him. Some of the money was used in social spending just before the election, to bolster his popular support. (New American)
Clinton’s meddling in Israeli elections
According to the Times piece,
- In the Middle East, the U.S. has aimed to bolster candidates who could further the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In 1996, seeking to fulfill the legacy of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the peace accords the U.S. brokered, then president Clinton openly supported Shimon Peres, convening a peace summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik to boost his popular support and inviting him to a meeting at the White House a month before the election.
“We were persuaded that if [Likud candidate Benjamin] Netanyahu were elected, the peace process would be closed for the season,” said Aaron David Miller, who worked at the State Department at the time.
In 1999, in a more subtle effort to sway the election, top Clinton strategists, including James Carville, were sent to advise Labor candidate Ehud Barak in the election against Netanyahu.
Obama’s meddling in Israeli elections
Under the auspices of Chairman Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) has released a report confirming allegations that an NGO with connections to President Obama’s 2008 campaign used U.S. taxpayer dollars attempting to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015. President Obama has had the worst relationship of any U.S. president with the elected prime minister of the Jewish State.
Sen. Claire McCaskill dutifully defended the administration, ” While this report shows no wrongdoing by the Administration, and should put to rest such allegations, it certainly highlights deficiencies in the (Obama State) Department’s policies that should be addressed in order to best protect taxpayer dollars.”(Washington Post)
The Hill reported under a headline reading Netanyahu pollster: Obama role in election larger than reported that "There was money moving that included taxpayer U.S. dollars, through non-profit organizations. And there were various liberal groups in the United States that were raising millions to fund a campaign called V15 against Prime Minister Netanyahu," John McLaughlin said.
The Washington Times added that In one stunning finding, the subcommittee said OneVoice even told the State Department’s top diplomat in Jerusalem of its plans in an email, but the official, Consul General Michael Ratney, claims never to have seen them.
He said he regularly deleted emails with large attachments — a striking violation of open-records laws for a department already reeling from former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s handling of official government records.
Ratney headed the Israel-Palestine portfolio at the State Department under John Kerry. Obama appointed Ratney as U.S. Special Envoy for Syria in July, 2015.
Other Obama meddling
The conservative, pro-Trump New American web site reminds its readers that if the Russians did covertly attempt to alter the outcome of the presidential election, it would seem somewhat hypocritical of the U.S. government to take umbrage. After all, the United States, under several presidents both Democrat and Republican, has repeatedly interfered in foreign elections, both covertly and overtly, multiple times in the past several decades.
The article cited one of Obama's final day attempts to influence an election. Most recently, President Obama told British voters that they better not vote for Brexit — the public vote for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union (EU) — or they would find themselves “at the back of the queue [line]” in getting any sort of trade deal with the United States.
What’s it really all about?
A little background from Snopes. The Snopes’ article seems unbiased.
- If the link does fails to open the Snopes’ page, the URL is
http://www.snopes.com/2017/04/18/russia-us-fake-news/”Snopes
Russia’s overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views towards the Kremlin. They were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary season and may have help sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests long before the field narrowed. Senator Rubio, in my opinion you anecdotally suffered from these efforts. … This past week we observed social media accounts discrediting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, hoping to further foment unrest inside U.S. democratic institutions. Clint Watts, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow.
The main advantage of conspiracy theories as political tools is that they can spread a general anti-establishment sentiment and they can destroy the credibility and trust in all the established leaders and institutions. It’s not only an American phenomenon that conspiracy theorists are popping up and operating around anti-establishment candidates. Péter Krekó, a Fulbright scholar from Hungary and a visiting professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington
Who wrote what
- NGO connected to Obama’s 2008 campaign used U.S. tax dollars trying to oust Netanyahu (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/07/12/ngo-connected-to-obamas-2008-campaign-used-u-s-tax-dollars-trying-to-oust-netanyahu/
- The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries (LA Times)
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-us-intervention-foreign-elections-20161213-story.html
- U.S. Has Interfered in Foreign Elections Multiple Times (New American)
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/24916-us-has-interfered-in-foreign-elections-multiple-times
- Obama admin. sent taxpayer money to campaign to oust Netanyahu (Washington Times)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/12/obama-admin-sent-taxpayer-money-oust-netanyahu/
- Obama State Dept: $350K For Campaign Infrastructure Used Against Netanyahu In Israel Election (CNS)
http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/state-dept-350k-group-built-campaign-structure-used-against-election-israels
- Netanyahu pollster: Obama role in election larger than reported (The Hill)
http://thehill.com/policy/international/236565-netanyahu-pollster-obama-role-in-election-larger-than-reported
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment